The William & Mary field hockey welcomes alums and friends back to campus for Homecoming this weekend with a pair of crucial Colonial Athletic Association match-ups. The Tribe hosts Drexel on Friday night, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m., before taking on No. 18-ranked Delaware on Sunday at noon. Both games can be followed via live stats on TribeAthletics.com.
Scouting the Tribe
W&M enters the weekend at 7-5 overall and 3-0 in the CAA, after splitting two matches in California last weekend. Freshman goalkeeper
Kimi Jones (Virginia Beach, Va.) was named the CAA Rookie of the Week, and leads the CAA this season with a 5-1 record, 1.34 GAA, and a .735 save percentage. On offense,
Estelle Hughes (Newcastle, NSW, Australia) leads the league with 21 points and 0.67 goals per game, while
Woodard Hooper (Reston, Va.) also has eight goals overall.
Annie Snead (Midlothian, Va.), 14 points on three goals and eight assists, and
Christie van de Kamp (Midlothian, Va.), 16 points on five goals and six assists, rank first and second in the CAA in assists.
Scouting the Dragons
Drexel enters the weekend at 7-7 overall, and 0-2 in the CAA after beating Temple 2-1 last weekend. Tess Bernheimer leads the team and ranks among the conference leaders in scoring this year with 20 points, coming on two assists and a CAA-best nine goals. Puk Thewessen (4g,3a) and Megan Wiest (3g,4a) are also among the offensive leaders. In goal, Erin Gilchrist has seen the majority of action with a 2.7 GAA and 38 saves on a .655 save percentage.
Scouting the Blue Hens
Delaware held steady at No. 18 in the national poll this week, after picking up a pair of 2-0 wins at home over No. 20 Virginia and Penn. The Blue Hens are 8-6 overall and 2-0 in the CAA, with a pair of three-goal wins over Drexel (3-0) and James Madison (6-3). Lotte de Koning and All-American Greta Nauck are the offensive leaders, with 19 (8g,3a) and 18 (6g,6a) points, respectively. On defense, Sydney Rhodes has control of the goal and a 1.77 GAA and 43 saves on a .683 save percentage.
The Series
- W&M is 10-8 all-time against Drexel, and winners of two in a row and three of the last four. Last year, the Tribe won 2-0 in Philadelphia, after claiming a 2-1 victory in the last game in Williamsburg in 2016.
- The Blue Hens lead the all-time series, 16-8, with the Tribe looking for its first win since a 4-0 shutout in Williamsburg back in 2012. Delaware has won the last six CAA Championships as well as the 2016 NCAA Championships, and hasn't lost to a conference opponent since 2015.
News and Notes
- Hughes was named this week to the Victory Sports Tours/NFHCA Senior Game, one of just 38 players nationally and three from the CAA to garner the prestigious invitation.
- As a team, W&M leads the CAA in every offensive category. That includes assists per game (15th nationally), goals per game (20th), points per game (18th), and scoring average (20th).
- Individually, Jones ranks sixth nationally among goalkeepers with her 5-1 record (.833 winning percentage), while also ranking 15th in GAA and 23rd in save percentage.
- Snead ranks eighth nationally in assists per game, at 0.67. Her eight assists this season are tied for eighth all-time at W&M, and just three behind the school record of 11 set by All-Americans
Pixie Hamilton '80 (in 1979) and
Karen Thorne '84 (in 1982)
- So far this season, W&M players have recorded seven multi-goal games, including against Pacific when both Hooper and van de Kamp scored two goals apiece.
- The Tribe have also been exceedingly generous with the ball, with six multi-assist games on the ledger. Both Snead and van de Kamp have had two double-assist games.
- Between the 22nd minute against Northeastern and the 24th minute against No. 21 Stanford, the W&M defense shutout its opponents for 285:11. In that time, the Tribe out-scored its foes 17-0.
- Hooper has scored six goals in the last four games, including the only goal against Hofstra, a hat trick against Towson and two more against Pacific.
- Hooper's hat trick against Towson was the first of her career, and tied her for 15th all-time in a single game at W&M.
- Hughes' hat trick against Brown was her first, and her fifth overall multi-goal game. That's tied for the sixth-most in school history, and just one game behind what former teammates
Emma MacLeod '18 and
Cammie Lloyd '18 achieved.
- With both Hooper and Hughes scoring hat tricks this season, this is the first year since 2003 that W&M has had multiple hat tricks in the same year.
- Hooper was named the CAA Player of the Week on Oct. 9 following her performance against Towson.
- Freshman
Cara Menges (Richmond, Va.) was named the CAA Rookie of the Week on Oct. 2, after scoring two goals including the overtime game-winner against Northeastern.
- Hughes was named the CAA Player of the Week back on Sept. 11, after scoring four goals and an assist and leading W&M to wins over Brown and VCU.
- This season marked the first time that the Tribe has ever played west of the Mississippi River. The Tribe is 9-7 all-time against teams from California, but before this year, all of those games were held either in Williamsburg or at other neutral sites.
- W&M has been strong on the corner at both ends of the field this season, leading the CAA in offensive conversion of penalty corners, and ranking third on defending opponent's penalty corners. The Tribe has scored 13 goals on 56 corners (23.21%), and only allowed 10 goals on 69 attempts (an 85.51% penalty kill rate).
- Head coach
Tess Ellis became the third W&M coach to reach 50 wins last weekend with the victory over Towson, joining
Nancy Porter (1974-1981) and
Peel Hawthorne '80 (1987-2013)
- W&M's 3-0 start in CAA play is just the fourth ever for the Tribe, joining the 2004, 2005, and 2017 seasons.
- In the latest NFHCA National Poll, W&M had seven opponents ranked. That includes No. 4 Duke, No. 5 Connecticut, No. 14 Wake Forest, No. 18 Delaware, No. 20 Stanford, No. 23 Virginia, and No. 25 Old Dominion.
- The first seven of the Tribe's games this season were all won with at least four goals, the longest-such streak in school history. Before the 6-1 win for No. 2 UCONN, the first six games had all been won with four goals each, which is the longest-ever streak of the same winning totals.
- With games against UCONN and Delaware, this is the first time since 1999 that the Tribe has played each of the previous two NCAA Champions in the same season.
- With the cancellation of the Davidson match, W&M is projected to finish the regular season with the fewest number of games played (16) since the 1989 season, which had 15 games before the South Atlantic Conference tournament. W&M went 10-5 in those 15 games, and finished 12-6 after reaching the conference championship game.
- Over the summer,
Christie van de Kamp was named to the Team USA U21 Junior National Team for the second year in a row.
- Both van de Kamp and senior
Jenny McCann (Annandale, Va.) will serve as team captains this season.
